Our People

In memoriam: Daniel D. Levenson

A remembrance

Our friend and colleague, Daniel D. Levenson, died on September 13, 2008.

Dan was born in Boston in 1932, and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University (1954) and Stanford Law School (1959). He then joined our firm, where for the next 49 years — nearly half a century — he conducted a thriving tax and estate practice. Along the way, he became a member of the United States Supreme Court Bar (1977), and also earned the universal respect of all he came in contact with in his professional life.

Outside of his legal practice, Dan devoted his life to promoting the most basic of human rights: access to food and housing for those least able to afford those necessities. A quietly wise, steady, and generous man, he left no good deed undone — and no injustice unchallenged.

But there was the other side of Dan that we want to capture: the down-to-earth, irreverent, quirky-sense-of-humor observer of life. People used to call his office phone after hours just to listen to his voice-mail greetings, which very often were diatribes against the latest outrages perpetrated by nefarious ultraconservatives in the halls of power. Like Dan, those little screeds were funny and irresistible. Sometimes people (even ultraconservatives) called right back to listen again.

Dan was an extraordinary friend, lawyer, and advisor. We will always miss him, and honor his memory.